LibraryThing

Getting started with LibraryThing is very easy--within 5 minutes I'd created an account and was adding books to my library. There's far more that can be done with LibraryThing than what I'd accomplish in my brief first visit. This is a great site to catalog, review, and share information about books. For the bibliophile it would be worth paying the fee for the expanded service, as a free account limits you to a maximum of 200 books.

It did take 4 tries to produce a display of the 8 titles I added. The cover images are small, so click on each cover image for additional details.

I was interested in seeing how it would handle an older, out-of-print title, so I started with my set of the Time Master fantasy trilogy by Louise Cooper--an excellent fantasy series, but regrettably out of print for over 20 years. LT handled the details well, though it missed on the Library of Congress classification on at least one of the titles in the series.

Would LT replace standard library cataloging? No. In fact it relies upon LC to provide much of its data, just as thousands of libraries in the US and around the world rely upon LC's cataloging data and standards. LT can't supply consistent subject and genre headings or provide details as to publication history, previous editions under differing titles, tables of contents, etc., which can be found in SPL's catalog. Still, LT is an excellent resource for organizing one's own home library.